Seattle's teriyaki scene fading away

[Samurai_Jerk]

The Slow and Sad Death of Seattle's Iconic Teriyaki Scene

Teriyaki, the dish that the New York Times called Seattle’s version of the Chicago dog, is fading from the collective food brain of the city, as the residents who remember its heyday get priced out of their neighborhoods -- along with the restaurants that served it. For the newly arrived inhabitants taking over, teriyaki holds none of the worldly authenticity of phở nor the trendy uber-local appeal of foraged mushrooms. As the city continues to grow at one of the fastest rates in the nation, its signature dish is getting left behind: there are a third fewer teriyaki restaurants in Seattle today than there were a decade ago. What happened?

Sweet and sticky with sauce, all Seattle-style teriyaki stems from the basic formula Toshihiro Kasahara developed when he opened his first shop, Toshi’s Teriyaki, in 1976. The meat, traditionally chicken thighs slippery and brown from marinade, gets slapped on a hot grill. The high heat caramelizes the sugars, crisping the meat and leaving it with a crunch of barely burnt soy on the outside. Sliced into bite-size pieces, it’s served fanned out across a molded mound of white-as-snow rice, the sauce seeping down between the grains. The salad, like the meat, is sweet and crunchy, the iceberg lettuce and slivers of carrot and cabbage reminiscent of coleslaw, with only the rice vinaigrette separating it from old-school American picnic fare.

[...]

These days, Amazon workers living in new high-rises get whisked by the building’s corner aboard the streetcar. For lunch, they’ll choose between sushi delivered by Uber and pizza cooked by one of Seattle’s star chefs. Teriyaki doesn’t enter the equation. Its legacy in Seattle, the city where Kasahara created it, is fading.

In 2010, John T. Edge wrote an ode to Seattle teriyaki for the New York Times. He quotes Knute Berger, elder statesman of Seattle media, as saying the shops are “so ubiquitous as to have become invisible.” And once invisible, they actually disappear; two of the four restaurants Edge focused on have since closed. For those who grew up in Seattle, teriyaki was a way of life. Eula Scott Bynoe of the podcast Hella Black Hella Seattle tells the story of bringing a dying relative teriyaki from a favorite spot: "I was there to say goodbye," but the relative, a Seattle native, she joked, "just wanted the teriyaki." For new transplants, the simple dish doesn't fit the narrative of the shiny, new city. Teriyaki shops -- dirty and run-down -- aren't listed on any hot lists of where to eat in Seattle. Not in Seattle Metropolitan's 30 restaurant experiences you "must have," nor in alt-weekly The Stranger's "Eat Like a Local." To Seattle’s latest Amazon and Microsoft recruits -- living here as Seattle earned (and is still earning) acclaim for its culinary scene -- the city was built on Copper River salmon and Taylor Shellfish oysters.